For North Side teens, music hangout also a showplace for trends

Updated 12:02 pm, Friday, December 6, 2013

Photo: Helen L. Montoya / San Antonio Express-News

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Sam Kinsey today (above) and in his heyday as a dance club impresario (below). An exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center, “Teen Canteen: Two Decades of S.A. Rock & Roll,” showcases the Teen Canteen's history at its different venues from 1961 to 1977. less

Sam Kinsey today (above) and in his heyday as a dance club impresario (below). An exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center, “Teen Canteen: Two Decades of S.A. Rock & Roll,” showcases the Teen ... more

Photo: Helen L. Montoya / San Antonio Express-News

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Sam Kinsey stands in front of one of the Teen Canteen's several incarnations.

Sam Kinsey stands in front of one of the Teen Canteen's several incarnations.

Photo: Courtesy Sam Kinsey

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rock band Moving Sidewalks played San Antonio's Teen Canteen, then returned as a trio as ZZ Top. The new band got payed less because it played original songs.

rock band Moving Sidewalks played San Antonio's Teen Canteen, then returned as a trio as ZZ Top. The new band got payed less because it played original songs.

Photo: Rock Beat Records

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South Texas Popular Culture Center opens its Teen Canteen exhibit on Dec. 8. The Teen Canteen was a legendary teen club operated by Sam Kinsey featuring rock 'n' roll garage bands. Kinsey turns 75 next month; he saved most of the memorabilia from the 1960s and 1970s. less

There was a time when ZZ Top would play in San Antonio for $150. Sam Kinsey has the canceled check to prove it.

The time was September 1969. The place was Kinsey's Teen Canteen, a hangout for suburban junior high and high school kids and their favorite garage bands. It flourished at several locations from 1961 to 1977.

Giving ZZ Top a chance (the fledgling trio was an offshoot of guitarist Billy Gibbons' Moving Sidewalks, a Top 40 band that wanted to play original songs) is hardly Kinsey's greatest legacy or claim to fame.

Though he did give that little ol' band from Texas its first gig.

Like TV host Dick Clark nationally, and record producer Abe Epstein and radio DJs Bruce Hathaway and Ricci Ware in San Antonio, Kinsey knew what kids liked.

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The former record shop manager, who turned 75 last week, was among the first to recognize and capitalize on the rock 'n' roll trends of the early 1960s.

A new exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center, “Teen Canteen: Two Decades of S.A. Rock & Roll,” celebrates Kinsey's fabled teen club.

Rock 'n' roll was perceived as rebellious. Kinsey, who ran Silvey Music Co. on Donaldson Avenue just west of Jefferson High School, gave it a safe haven.

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When it launched in the early 1960s, the Teen Canteen offered a place to hang out, to listen to music and dance. At the beginning, smoking and drinking weren't allowed.

“Just good clean fun,” said Kinsey, who carried a flashlight to shine on couples getting too romantic during a slow song.

“He had a real tight grip on the security of those kids,” Hathaway said. “He knew the parents as well as the kids. The parents felt really comfortable leaving the kids there. It was pure teen entertainment.

“It was patrolled in nice way where the kids weren't offended. They felt like they had their place and (could) still do their thing.”

Soon, a suburban garage band scene emerged — predominantly white and existing apart from the brown sound of the Royal Jesters, Sunny & the Sunliners, Little Henry & the Laveers and Rudy & the Reno Bops.

The crowds didn't mix.

“There was no market for it” at the Teen Canteen, Kinsey said. “This wasn't the Tejano sound. Rudy Tee & the Reno Bops? No, no, no. The Churchill people and the MacArthur people and the Heights people would not have come flocking to hear them.”

The beginning

It all started at Silvey Music.

“It was a teen magnet,” Kinsey said. Youngsters would come into the store and buy 45s or just listen to them in a small booth.

Many were Mann and Longfellow junior high students fond of record hops at Jefferson United Methodist Church. Kinsey, who was 21, was asked if he would sponsor the dances in the summer of 1960.

Kinsey did, but he opened it up to other schools. That lasted two summers, with Kinsey also playing the part of DJ.

“I got them spoiled because they could intermingle with kids from other schools,” he said. “They planted the bug in my ear that if I had the record hops year 'round, they would attend.”

So Kinsey rented a storefront at 1728 Fredericksburg Road in the area now known as the Deco District. That was the first Teen Canteen. Now, his customers included high school students. The Teen Canteen was an immediate hit and “filled to capacity.”

There was only one problem: Kinsey needed more space.

In 1963, the Teen Canteen moved to Wonderland Mall. Kinsey worked out a deal with Bette and Glen Herring, who owned a dance studio on the mall's lower level. They were receptive to renting the space to Kinsey on weekends.

“The Teen Canteen really sprung into life,” Kinsey said.

That's when some of his regulars began to form garage bands. They quickly replaced any need for a DJ. Often, there were battle of the bands shows.

The Galaxies were the first band to play the Teen Canteen. Those that followed included the Sir Douglas Quintet, Cain's Children, the Chayns, the Outcasts, the Spidels, the Laughing Kind, Flash, Heironimous, Pablo's Grove, Homer and dozens more.

Teen trends

The Teen Canteen hit at a time when pop music was changing fast.

San Antonio's West Side sound was steeped in doo wop, early rock 'n' roll, New Orleans-style triplets and R&B. It emerged out of Lanier, Burbank and Sam Houston high schools and was made principally by Chicanos trying to sound black, but included white musicians and African-Americans.

The Teen Canteen was North Side — and white. Surf music echoed inside, played by local teen bands the Pipelines and the Xtremes.

“They were out of the garage. It was the only place they could go,” Kinsey said.

“It was the 'in place' to be,” radio star Hathaway agreed.

District Judge Sol Casseb played drums in the Pipelines, a band that specialized in the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean and the Rip Chords — perfect for the Teen Canteen.

“It was a very North Side thing,” said Casseb, recounting that the Pipelines ventured to the West Side once for a Patio Andaluz battle of the bands show with Little Henry & the Laveers and “just got killed” (in a tally of votes.)

“It was quite an experience,” he said. “Because in those days, little North Side boys didn't go south of Hildebrand (Avenue).”

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones ushered in a new era that also set the Teen Canteen apart.

“I became more aware of the music scene,” Kinsey said. “It was during that time at Wonderland that the English influence became popular and the kids started dressing in the bell-bottoms and English style and started wearing the hair as if the cereal bowl had been placed on their heads and trimmed around. Some of the boys, just out of nowhere, started having British accents.”

Kinsey tapped into the folk music scene as well. Hootenanny night was held on Sundays so “it wouldn't interfere with the dancing.”

“There was no dancing at the hootenannies. It was sit and listen,” Kinsey said.

Singer-songwriter Mike Nesmith, who went on to achieve fame with the Monkees, played at the Teen Canteen. So did Mike Post, who went on to become the multi-Grammy winning theme music composer for “Law & Order” and many others TV shows.

Audiences for the hootenannies included college students. Cover charge ranged from 50 cents to a dollar.

By 1967, Teen Canteen juveniles were too much for mall security to handle.

“Yes, loitering and hanging around. Kids wouldn't have the 50 cents to get in so they'd hang around in the mall,” Kinsey said.

The Teen Canteen moved to various locales: The Party House (owned by the Strange family) near Bandera Road and Quill Street, Earl Cobb Dance Studio on San Pedro Avenue (where El Fuerte nightclub stands today) and the Olmos Club on Olmos Drive.

Dances were all-ages events, and only students were allowed inside. Audiences often sat at the foot of the small stage as often as they danced.

“Kids were full of energy and excitement at the Canteen,” recalled Rod Prince of Bubble Puppy. “Sam Kinsey was always a sweetheart and always dug what the band was doing.”

Final resting place

Kinsey, with the help of some friends, purchased property on Bitters Road near the airport across the street from Blossom Athletic Center. A building was built and opened in the summer of 1968. But there was a problem: It was too far out. Kinsey had wanted to open every day after school “but that just didn't work.”

“I was the first commercial enterprise out there,” Kinsey said. “You almost had to pack a lunch to go out there.”

When the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971, it created more gloom.

“Attendance cratered because the 18-years-olds and older weren't going to go to the Teen Canteen anymore. They were going to go to clubs,” he said. “Even the younger girls would rather go where the older boys were.

“I had to lighten up on the rules and started allowing smoking, and the heydays were over.”

Some would bring in booze.

There were enough good times left for Kinsey to operate the club until August 1977, attracting such acts as S.A.'s Flash featuring Christopher Cross, Jim Jones & the Chaunteys of Fort Worth, the Mystics of Dallas, the Moving Sidewalks and Neal Ford & the Fanatics of Houston, the Titans of Austin and Zakary Thaks of Corpus Christi.

He sold everything in September 1977 and the venue became Skipwilly's. The last band to play the Teen Canteen was the Straw Dogs.

With the help of friend Bette Winsett, Kinsey formed a booking agency for the young musicians who played his club — Teen-Aged Musicians Association — which he operated until 2012.

“I finally decided to stop booking bands and stop stressing,” he said. “I was like the Dick Clark of the Pedernales. But I'd really rather stay in the background and fade away.”

There was a time when ZZ Top would play in San Antonio for $150. Sam Kinsey has the canceled check to prove it.

The time was September 1969. The place was Kinsey's Teen Canteen, a hangout for suburban junior high and high school kids and their favorite garage bands. It flourished at several locations from 1961 to 1977.

Giving ZZ Top a chance (the fledgling trio was an offshoot of guitarist Billy Gibbons' Moving Sidewalks, a Top 40 band that wanted to play original songs) is hardly Kinsey's greatest legacy or claim to fame.

Though he did give that little ol' band from Texas its first gig.

Like TV host Dick Clark nationally, and record producer Abe Epstein and radio DJs Bruce Hathaway and Ricci Ware in San Antonio, Kinsey knew what kids liked.

The former record shop manager, who turned 75 last week, was among the first to recognize and capitalize on the rock 'n' roll trends of the early 1960s.

A new exhibit at the South Texas Popular Culture Center, “Teen Canteen: Two Decades of S.A. Rock & Roll,” celebrates Kinsey's fabled teen club.

Rock 'n' roll was perceived as rebellious. Kinsey, who ran Silvey Music Co. on Donaldson Avenue just west of Jefferson High School, gave it a safe haven.

His focus group was the young Silvey Music crowd, Kinsey said.

When it launched in the early 1960s, the Teen Canteen offered a place to hang out, to listen to music and dance. At the beginning, smoking and drinking weren't allowed.

“Just good clean fun,” said Kinsey, who carried a flashlight to shine on couples getting too romantic during a slow song.

“He had a real tight grip on the security of those kids,” Hathaway said. “He knew the parents as well as the kids. The parents felt really comfortable leaving the kids there. It was pure teen entertainment.

“It was patrolled in nice way where the kids weren't offended. They felt like they had their place and (could) still do their thing.”

Soon, a suburban garage band scene emerged — predominantly white and existing apart from the brown sound of the Royal Jesters, Sunny & the Sunliners, Little Henry & the Laveers and Rudy & the Reno Bops.

The crowds didn't mix.

“There was no market for it” at the Teen Canteen, Kinsey said. “This wasn't the Tejano sound. Rudy Tee & the Reno Bops? No, no, no. The Churchill people and the MacArthur people and the Heights people would not have come flocking to hear them.”

The beginning

It all started at Silvey Music.

“It was a teen magnet,” Kinsey said. Youngsters would come into the store and buy 45s or just listen to them in a small booth.

Many were Mann and Longfellow junior high students fond of record hops at Jefferson United Methodist Church. Kinsey, who was 21, was asked if he would sponsor the dances in the summer of 1960.

Kinsey did, but he opened it up to other schools. That lasted two summers, with Kinsey also playing the part of DJ.

“I got them spoiled because they could intermingle with kids from other schools,” he said. “They planted the bug in my ear that if I had the record hops year 'round, they would attend.”

So Kinsey rented a storefront at 1728 Fredericksburg Road in the area now known as the Deco District. That was the first Teen Canteen. Now, his customers included high school students. The Teen Canteen was an immediate hit and “filled to capacity.”

There was only one problem: Kinsey needed more space.

In 1963, the Teen Canteen moved to Wonderland Mall. Kinsey worked out a deal with Bette and Glen Herring, who owned a dance studio on the mall's lower level. They were receptive to renting the space to Kinsey on weekends.

“The Teen Canteen really sprung into life,” Kinsey said.

That's when some of his regulars began to form garage bands. They quickly replaced any need for a DJ. Often, there were battle of the bands shows.

The Galaxies were the first band to play the Teen Canteen. Those that followed included the Sir Douglas Quintet, Cain's Children, the Chayns, the Outcasts, the Spidels, the Laughing Kind, Flash, Heironimous, Pablo's Grove, Homer and dozens more.

Teen trends

The Teen Canteen hit at a time when pop music was changing fast.

San Antonio's West Side sound was steeped in doo wop, early rock 'n' roll, New Orleans-style triplets and R&B. It emerged out of Lanier, Burbank and Sam Houston high schools and was made principally by Chicanos trying to sound black, but included white musicians and African-Americans.

The Teen Canteen was North Side — and white. Surf music echoed inside, played by local teen bands the Pipelines and the Xtremes.

“They were out of the garage. It was the only place they could go,” Kinsey said.

“It was the 'in place' to be,” radio star Hathaway agreed.

District Judge Sol Casseb played drums in the Pipelines, a band that specialized in the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean and the Rip Chords — perfect for the Teen Canteen.

“It was a very North Side thing,” said Casseb, recounting that the Pipelines ventured to the West Side once for a Patio Andaluz battle of the bands show with Little Henry & the Laveers and “just got killed” (in a tally of votes.)

“It was quite an experience,” he said. “Because in those days, little North Side boys didn't go south of Hildebrand (Avenue).”

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones ushered in a new era that also set the Teen Canteen apart.

“I became more aware of the music scene,” Kinsey said. “It was during that time at Wonderland that the English influence became popular and the kids started dressing in the bell-bottoms and English style and started wearing the hair as if the cereal bowl had been placed on their heads and trimmed around. Some of the boys, just out of nowhere, started having British accents.”

Kinsey tapped into the folk music scene as well. Hootenanny night was held on Sundays so “it wouldn't interfere with the dancing.”

“There was no dancing at the hootenannies. It was sit and listen,” Kinsey said.

Singer-songwriter Mike Nesmith, who went on to achieve fame with the Monkees, played at the Teen Canteen. So did Mike Post, who went on to become the multi-Grammy winning theme music composer for “Law & Order” and many others TV shows.

Audiences for the hootenannies included college students. Cover charge ranged from 50 cents to a dollar.

By 1967, Teen Canteen juveniles were too much for mall security to handle.

“Yes, loitering and hanging around. Kids wouldn't have the 50 cents to get in so they'd hang around in the mall,” Kinsey said.

The Teen Canteen moved to various locales: The Party House (owned by the Strange family) near Bandera Road and Quill Street, Earl Cobb Dance Studio on San Pedro Avenue (where El Fuerte nightclub stands today) and the Olmos Club on Olmos Drive.

Dances were all-ages events, and only students were allowed inside. Audiences often sat at the foot of the small stage as often as they danced.

“Kids were full of energy and excitement at the Canteen,” recalled Rod Prince of Bubble Puppy. “Sam Kinsey was always a sweetheart and always dug what the band was doing.”

Final resting place

Kinsey, with the help of some friends, purchased property on Bitters Road near the airport across the street from Blossom Athletic Center. A building was built and opened in the summer of 1968. But there was a problem: It was too far out. Kinsey had wanted to open every day after school “but that just didn't work.”

“I was the first commercial enterprise out there,” Kinsey said. “You almost had to pack a lunch to go out there.”

When the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971, it created more gloom.

“Attendance cratered because the 18-years-olds and older weren't going to go to the Teen Canteen anymore. They were going to go to clubs,” he said. “Even the younger girls would rather go where the older boys were.

“I had to lighten up on the rules and started allowing smoking, and the heydays were over.”

Some would bring in booze.

There were enough good times left for Kinsey to operate the club until August 1977, attracting such acts as S.A.'s Flash featuring Christopher Cross, Jim Jones & the Chaunteys of Fort Worth, the Mystics of Dallas, the Moving Sidewalks and Neal Ford & the Fanatics of Houston, the Titans of Austin and Zakary Thaks of Corpus Christi.

He sold everything in September 1977 and the venue became Skipwilly's. The last band to play the Teen Canteen was the Straw Dogs.

With the help of friend Bette Winsett, Kinsey formed a booking agency for the young musicians who played his club — Teen-Aged Musicians Association — which he operated until 2012.

“I finally decided to stop booking bands and stop stressing,” he said. “I was like the Dick Clark of the Pedernales. But I'd really rather stay in the background and fade away.”